CBD 2 bio-divers bak

cbd1018

oops, duplicate fixed? ntbc w/ integrity?

promoted to primary 12/17 kickass legal efforts

see 9/18 diversity as generic systems concep

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For Immediate Release, August 15, 2025

MAHA Commission Succumbs to Pesticide Industry Pressure

*Draft Report Walks Back Administration’s Promises of Bold Action on Pesticides

WASHINGTON— A much-anticipated draft action plan from the Make America Healthy Again Commission eliminated any plans for action on pesticides. This report is the follow up to the commission’s May MAHA report, which included pesticides and specifically named both glyphosate and atrazine.

The threat of any new restrictions being placed on the use of dangerous pesticides spurred a massive and successful lobbying effort by the chemical industry and commodity growers’ groups, alongside their friends in Congress and the EPA, to force the commission to back off. Instead of action, the recommendations direct the EPA and Big Ag to work together to convince the public to have confidence in pesticide review processes, which are broadly criticized for scientific inadequacy and excessive industry influence. It also encourages research into new pesticide application technologies

“Despite the administration’s promises to MAHA and the reality that using a billion pounds of pesticides in the U.S. each year is a major threat to public health, pesticide interests again prevailed in protecting their profits,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Big Ag’s success in steamrolling the commission’s attempt to act on pesticides is a gut punch to everyone who genuinely believed we could finally make progress on protecting children’s health from these poisons.”

More than 300 million pounds of glyphosate and 70 million pounds of atrazine are used by U.S. farmers annually. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed by cancer victims who used Roundup, which contains glyphosate. Atrazine, a powerful endocrine disruptor that contaminates the drinking water of 40 million Americans, is so toxic it is banned in more than 60 countries.

The United States allows use of 85 pesticides that have been banned or are being phased out in the European Union, China or Brazil, according to a peer-reviewed study published by the academic journal Environmental Health. Over a quarter of all agricultural pesticide use in this country includes pesticides banned in the European Union.

“The MAHA Commission is insulting the intelligence of Americans. It’s outlandish to recommend solving our pesticide woes by having the EPA and Big Ag try to convince us that the deeply flawed pesticide regulatory process is working just fine,” said Burd. “While Big Ag won this battle, the powerful grassroots movement of millions of Americans who know that these chemicals are making us sick will continue fighting to protect their families from pesticides like glyphosate and atrazine.”

Some of the strongest resistance against action on pesticides appears to have come from the administration’s political appointees in the EPA’s chemical safety office. Widespread reporting has pointed a finger at Nancy Beck, a former executive with the American Chemistry Council who, after diligently serving pesticide interests in Trump’s first administration, has been brought back as principal deputy assistant administrator overseeing the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety. Another American Chemistry Council veteran, Lynn Ann Dekleva, is also back at the EPA, serving as deputy assistant administrator for new chemicals.

More recently, the administration appointed well-known MAHA critic and American Soybean Association lobbyist Kyle Kunkler as deputy assistant administrator for pesticides at the EPA. Just one month after Kunkler’s arrival at the EPA, the agency proposed to reapprove over-the-top use of dicamba, a highly controversial pesticide that Kunkler lobbied for extensively in his former position.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly stated that many of the most-used pesticides in the United States are “extraordinarily toxic,” including and organophosphates. He has that pesticides — many of which have scientifically well-documented links to cancer, infertility, obesity and developmental disorders — are significant contributors to chronic health problems faced by people across the nation.

Following his reelection Trump expressed his own concerns that the United States continues spending “billions and billions of dollars on pesticides,” compared to the European Union and yet has far worse health outcomes. He pledged that his administration would “ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, [and] pesticides.”

As part of that pledge, he nominated Kennedy as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services with a mandate to “go wild on the food.” Trump stated that Kennedy is “looking into [pesticides] very seriously because maybe it's not necessary to use all of that.”

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.8 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.}:

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AN 525

On April 9, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14270, blandly titled “Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy.” Behind that bureaucratic name is a sweeping directive: Dismantle a century of environmental protections.

Every regulation related to the environment, natural resources, or energy, whether it safeguards air, water, species, or public lands, must be rewritten to serve polluters or vanish by default.

Some will claim this is just about efficiency. But no standard review process sets a mass expiration date for protections, regardless of science, impact, or legal mandate. This is not streamlining. It is a countdown to erasure.

While courts deliberate, rules will expire. Enforcement will be suspended. Polluters will act as if the rules are already gone.

The deadline is September 30, 2026. Any rule not revised and reauthorized by then will expire automatically.

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What will remain will not be protection. It will not be science. It will not be law. It will be a hollow shell, stripped of enforcement and public purpose.

This is not reform. It is demolition. It is sabotage by executive order.

They Said It Couldn’t Happen

To everyone who said, “They’d never go that far,” they just did. And the collapse has already begun.

With Executive Order 14270, Donald Trump issued not a policy revision but a regulatory kill order.

The EO mandates that all regulations under energy-related authority—especially those administered by agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Departments of Interior and Energy—must be reviewed and either revised to align with the administration’s priorities or be automatically terminated by September 30, 2026. While for some agencies the EO does not name specific laws, many foundational protections fall within these agencies’ regulatory domains.

Some may argue this is simply a regulatory reset or a call for modernization. But this is not a review guided by science, need, or public interest. It is a mandate that requires rules to serve industry or disappear by default. There is no neutral path. There is no room for delay. If an agency fails to revise and reauthorize a rule in time, it expires. No matter how vital it is.

Legal experts and environmental attorneys have described similar regulatory strategies by the previous Trump administration as calculated attempts to dismantle environmental protections from within.

Even the rules that survive review will be rewritten, stripped of science and purpose, then repackaged as hollow compliance.

This is not a bureaucratic obstacle. It is a regulatory kill switch.

What that means in practice:

• Endangered Species Act—gone.
• Migratory Bird Treaty Act—gone.
• Marine Mammal Protection Act—gone.
• Anadromous Fish Conservation Act—under threat.
• Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act—gone.

These aren’t just under review. They are all under attack.

Breadth and Scope of the Loss

The laws everyone recognizes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act, are just the beginning.

Beneath them lie hundreds of foundational rules that safeguard public health, climate resilience, environmental justice, and disaster readiness. Under Executive Order 14270, they are all at risk.

Supporters may claim the order only targets outdated or burdensome regulations. But the text applies broadly and indiscriminately. It sets no exceptions for essential rules, no protections for high-impact safeguards, and no criteria for public benefit. Unless these rules are rewritten to meet the new standards and reauthorized by September 30, 2026, they will expire. Along with them goes the regulatory backbone of modern environmental protection.

This is not theoretical. These laws will fall unless actively rescued.

Key protections on the chopping block:

Air, Water, and Public Health

• Clean Air Act

• Clean Water Act

• Safe Drinking Water Act

• Toxic Substances Control Act

• Superfund cleanup authority

• Mercury and Air Toxics Standards

Land and Resource Protection

• Resource Conservation and Recovery Act

• Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act

• Wilderness Act

• Antiquities Act

• Wild and Scenic Rivers Act

• Federal Land Policy and Management Act

Energy and Climate

• Energy Policy Act of 2005

• Greenhouse gas endangerment finding

• Energy Star Program

• Oil Pollution Act of 1990

Each of these took years, sometimes decades, of organizing, science, and compromise to create. They were not handed down by elites. They were won by people who refused to accept poisoned air, burning rivers, and dead coastlines.

Now they are being erased in a single executive order. Not one by one. All at once. This is not a rollback. It is erasure.

The Hidden Collapse

Executive Order 14270 does not just target major environmental laws. It dismantles the infrastructure that makes those laws real.

Supporters may argue that the laws remain untouched. But behind every statute, like the Clean Water Act or Endangered Species Act, are thousands of rules, monitoring systems, enforcement protocols, and technical standards. Without them, laws are just words on paper.

Now, all of that must be rewritten to serve polluters. If not, it disappears permanently.

Thousands of environmental regulations administered by agencies such as the EPA and the Department of the Interior could be subject to review and potential termination under Executive Order 14270.

Here is what that collapse looks like:

Public Health Protections

• Air monitoring rules vanish. No alerts for lead, benzene, or ozone.

• Radiation limits are lifted. Safety near nuclear sites erodes.

• Vehicle emissions testing ends. Smog returns to U.S. cities.

Water, Waste, and Pollution

• Stormwater runoff restrictions disappear. Waste floods rivers.

• Hazardous waste transport rules vanish. Disposal turns chaotic.

• Drilling oversight ends. Protected lands are opened to industry.

Climate and Disaster Response

• Energy efficiency rules are revoked. Electric bills rise.

• Fire mitigation programs are defunded. Wildfires grow deadlier.

• Fisheries protections vanish. Coastal economies are destabilized.

This is not just about forests or fish. It is about tap water, asthma medication, grocery prices, and cancer risks.

Betsy Southerland, former EPA director of science and technology for water, has warned that deregulatory approaches of this kind could lead to systemic breakdowns in public health protections.

This order does not trim fat. It guts the public architecture that keeps America safe, functional, and future-ready.

The Economic and Societal Cost

The damage from Executive Order 14270 will not stop with wildlife or wilderness. It will hammer the economy; threaten public health; and unravel industries that depend on clean air, safe water, and protected landscapes.

Some defenders will argue that environmental regulations stifle business, raise costs, or limit innovation. But environmental law in America was not born from ideology. It was forged in crisis, created to prevent economic collapse, mass illness, and ecological ruin. Many of these statutes were passed with overwhelming bipartisan support because Americans knew the cost of doing nothing was greater.

The Clean Air Act passed under former President Richard Nixon. The 1972 Clean Water Act was called “the most comprehensive and expensive environmental legislation in the nation’s history.” These laws did not just protect nature. They helped build the modern economy.

Many of the protections now targeted form the backbone of multibillion-dollar industries:

Wildlife and National Identity

• The Endangered Species Act saved the bald eagle, peregrine falcon, and California condor.

• The Migratory Bird Treaty Act protects ecosystems and supports rural economies across the country.

• The Marine Mammal Protection Act helped build a coastal tourism sector that generates billions.

• Fish conservation laws sustain sport fishing, a major driver in many regional economies.

Outdoor Economies

• Outdoor recreation supports $887 billion in consumer spending and 7.6 million jobs.

• Hiking, hunting, wildlife viewing, and camping all depend on healthy ecosystems.

• Without habitat protections, what is Yellowstone without wolves, or the coast without whales?

The law may speak of species and land. But the stakes are money, jobs, health, and identity.

This executive order guts the systems that protect them all.

The Human Toll and Environmental Injustice

The collapse will not hit everyone equally. It never does.

When environmental protections vanish, the first to suffer are the poor, the marginalized, and the politically powerless.

Some may argue that environmental burdens are shared evenly across society. But the data and history say otherwise. Environmental harm follows lines of poverty, race, and neglect. It hits those with the fewest resources, the least political power, and the highest exposure to toxins.

Without the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act, vulnerable communities will lose safeguards against dumping, runoff, and lead contamination. New water crises will erupt in towns already on the edge.

Without the Clean Air Act, toxic smog will return to cities, especially in low-income and minority neighborhoods shaped by redlining and industrial zoning.

Without the National Environmental Policy Act, communities will have no voice in what gets built near their homes: pipelines, refineries, highways, landfills.

Without Superfund enforcement, the most toxic sites in America will be left to rot. Poison will seep into soil, water, and lives.

This is not theory. It is already happening:

• In Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, petrochemical plants poison Black neighborhoods. Cancer rates there are 50 times the national average.

• In West Virginia, abandoned coal towns face toxic water and respiratory illness.

• In Alaska and the Southwest, Indigenous communities still live beside Cold War-era uranium waste.

• Along the Pacific coast, salmon vanish and fishing economies unravel.

These are not isolated stories. They are previews.

The burden will fall hardest on those without lawyers, lobbyists, or local health departments—families already excluded from public hearings, ignored by regulators, and left behind by politics.

Executive Order 14270 turns temporary harm into permanent abandonment.

This is not just inequality. It is environmental apartheid..

Regulatory Collapse Is Guaranteed

This is not hypothetical. It is structural failure, built into the design.

Executive Order 14270 sets an impossible mandate: Every environmental regulation must be reviewed, revised, and reauthorized by September 30, 2026. If not, it will expire automatically.

Some will claim that with enough willpower and coordination, agencies can meet the deadline. But that is a myth. There are not enough staff. There is not enough time. And there is no intention to make it work. The order was built to break the system, not to improve it.

Environmental watchdogs and legal analysts suggest that only a small percentage of rules could realistically be reviewed and reissued before the deadline.

This is not deregulation. It is planned demolition.

Here is what that guarantees:

• Legal protections for ecosystems will collapse.

• Clean air and water rules will disappear.

• Ecotourism and outdoor recreation will suffer.

• Climate policy will be paralyzed.

• Inequality will worsen as states scramble to fill the void.

• Courts will be overwhelmed by lawsuits and confusion.

• Irreversible environmental damage will be locked in for generations.

Even if a future administration tries to reverse the damage, it could take years or even decades to rebuild what was destroyed.

Some things will not survive that long: species, coastlines, forests, ecosystems.

This is not a policy failure. It is policy used as a weapon.

The extinction of environmental protections is not a side effect. It is the goal.

Can This EO Actually Be Enforced?

Technically, yes. Executive Order 14270 can be enforced. But legally and practically, it is a minefield for all concerned.

Agencies can initiate rule reviews and assign expiration dates, especially when leadership supports the administration’s anti-regulatory agenda. But that does not make it lawful.

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, agencies must follow strict procedures before repealing or replacing rules. They must issue public notices, allow comment periods, hold hearings, and provide justifications. They cannot simply say, “The president told us to.”

Some defenders may argue the president has broad authority to manage agencies. But the law is clear: Regulatory repeal must follow legal process. Many of the protections targeted by this order were enacted by Congress. Agencies do not have the authority to let them quietly expire or gut them without breaking the law.

That is why lawsuits are already being filed. Legal challenges will come from environmental groups, state attorneys general, and public interest organizations.

But here is the catch: the damage will not wait.

While courts deliberate, rules will expire. Enforcement will be suspended. Polluters will act as if the rules are already gone.

Even if a judge rules against the administration, the harm will be done:

• Toxic waste released.

• Forests cleared.

• Communities exposed.

And if the White House refuses to comply? There is no enforcement arm of the Administrative Procedure Act. No agency exists to compel federal departments to enforce their own rules.

The only option is to sue, repeatedly, rule by rule, across jurisdictions.

As one Earthjustice attorney put it, “The law doesn’t enforce itself. And this administration knows it.”

Litigation takes money, time, expertise, and legal standing. These are resources many frontline communities do not have.

Environmental lawyers and watchdogs saw this coming. They are already planning for fights across dozens of fronts: air quality, pipelines, species protection, data suppression, and executive action.

But how many lawsuits will it take? 10? 50? 100?

Each one will be slow. Expensive. Uncertain.

This is not incompetence. It is sabotage, carried out with full intent.

And What About the Planet

This executive order is not just a domestic disaster.It is a climate change nuclear bomb.

Executive Order 14270 erases the foundation of nearly every federal climate policy:

• It nullifies the greenhouse gas endangerment finding, the legal trigger for regulating carbon emissions.

• It dismantles efficiency standards for appliances, buildings, and vehicles.

• It undermines the Energy Star Program and other clean energy incentives.

• It guts methane rules, fuel economy standards, and oil spill safeguards.

Some will argue that climate progress can continue without federal policy, through state action or private innovation. But without national coordination, incentives, and legal authority, that progress will slow, fragmented, and ultimately fall short. Federal policy drives investment, enforces accountability, and sets the global tone.

With these tools gone, the United States cannot meet its climate goals. Not nationally. Not globally.

We will miss our Paris agreement targets. We will exceed the 1.5°C warming threshold. And we will pull other nations backward with us.

The damage is not just about emissions. It is about lost leadership. Lost credibility. And a green light to polluters everywhere.

This is not a pause. It is a reversal.

Climate collapse is no longer a distant danger. It is a scheduled event, signed into law by the president.

The Heart of It

This executive order does not repeal environmental laws. It kills the systems that make those laws work.

The Clean Air Act will still exist. But if EPA regulations expire, there will be no enforcement.

The Endangered Species Act will remain on paper. But without specific protections and triggers, no species will be protected.

This is the method: Dismantle implementation. Remove enforcement. Let the law collapse from the inside out.

It is a bureaucratic kill switch, designed to erase a century of environmental progress without ever repealing a statute.

Legal on paper. Lethal in practice.

Once the rules disappear, the laws become theater:

• No enforcement.

• No funding.

• No consequences.

They will still be on the books, but they will no longer matter.

Empty laws. Empty air. Empty rivers. Empty promises.

How We Fight, and Why We Must

There is no silver-bullet lawsuit. No single agency. No shortcut.

This executive order will not be stopped by one clever court challenge. It will take dozens, perhaps hundreds, of battles—rule by rule, agency by agency, ecosystem by ecosystem.

Some will ask, why not file one big lawsuit to stop it all? Because Executive Order 14270 does not repeal a single law. It sets a countdown clock for thousands of regulations to vanish unless reauthorized. That makes it nearly lawsuit-proof by design. Each rule must be challenged individually, and only after harm has occurred. Courts cannot force agencies to act unless Congress explicitly mandates it. And even then, litigation takes time. By the time a ruling arrives, the damage may already be done. The law does not enforce itself. And this executive order exploits that fact.

There is no cavalry. Only us.

So we fight, everywhere:

• File lawsuits, fast and often: Legal action is the first and last line of defense. Every expired rule must be challenged. Every unlawful revision must be contested. Rapid-response legal teams must be ready to sue the EPA, Department of the Interior, and Department of Energy across multiple jurisdictions. Delay means destruction.

• Support legal and watchdog organizations: Groups like Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity are already fighting. But they are underfunded and overwhelmed. They need staff, experts, and resources. Every donation matters. Every volunteer strengthens the line.

• Pressure elected officials at every level: Demand public hearings. Demand oversight. Call your governor. Write your city council. Make it politically toxic to support this executive order.
• Act locally: States and cities can pass their own clean air and water laws. They can fund conservation, restrict drilling, and sue federal agencies. Join local groups. Attend zoning meetings. Run for water boards and planning commissions. Build resistance into local government.
• Refuse to normalize this: Speak out. Disrupt. Document. This is not politics as usual. Say so. Organize protests. Submit op-eds. Flood comment periods. Call out silence. Expose polluters. Make the truth visible.
• Demand media coverage: Executive Order 14270 should be a daily headline. If it is not, make it one. Share stories. Elevate frontline voices. Hold media outlets accountable. If national media fails, local and independent voices must rise.

This is a regulatory blitz.And resistance must be relentless.

The strategy is simple: flood the system, fracture it, and exhaust the opposition.

While we scramble to save species, lands, and laws, they bulldoze everything else.

This is not a warning. It is a dispatch from the front lines.

They are not debating whether to dismantle environmental protections. They are dismantling them, right now.

If you ever said, “They would never go that far,” They just did.

This is not just bad policy. It is a deliberate attempt to cripple the government’s ability to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, the climate we depend on, and the living world we love.

It is not a mistake. It is the plan.

The question is no longer what they will do. The question is what we will do about it.

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AN SN 7 25

Do you think concentration camps are cool?

Does your heart fill with mean-spirited joy at the thought of human beings stuffed into tents and FEMA trailers parked on a disused airstrip in the heart of the Everglades in the middle of a Florida summer?

Do you get off on the idea of alligators and snakes killing people and admire bully capitalism hawking camo beverage coolers, stickers, and T-shirts with grinning reptiles proclaiming, “Nowhere to Run; Nowhere to Hide”?

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier certainly does: He’s raising campaign cash on his own little merch site.

Other paid-up members of the Cruelty is the Point cult do, too.

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Celebrating the erection of Florida’s own gulag, known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” the state Republican Party bosses trilled, “Don’t forget to pick up your swag to support our efforts to undo all of Joe Biden’s failures!”

We are ruled by sociopaths.

This prison, parked in the middle of Big Cypress National Preserve, has already received hundreds of detainees, packed into rough-and-ready structures that have not had to meet any building or environmental codes and may not be able to withstand a tropical storm.

Cult leaders can’t decide if the place is Devil’s Island or a charmingly rustic resort.

Showing Donald Trump around the place, Ron DeSantis pointed to the razor wire, iron bunk beds, and bright new Astroturf on the ground.

The first batch of detainees don’t seem especially grateful. Those who’ve managed to make a phone call to the outside world say the guards have served them maggot-laced food, refused them medical attention, kept bright lights on all night, and either crank up the air conditioning until the detainees freeze or cut it off and let them swelter.

One alleged foreign malefactor says guards confiscated his Bible.

Gators in ICE caps

Trump loves this. He fantasizes about terrified detainees chased by Burmese pythons and “cops that are in the form of alligators.”

The White House has put out a Trump meme with a gaggle of gators in ICE caps.

The Trump administration is proud of this latest monument to hatred and gets very upset if anyone criticizes it.

Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s immigration policy, flew into a tantrum the other day when a reporter told him inhabitants of the human world were calling the South Florida stalag “dehumanizing.”

“American citizens are stripped of their rights and their liberties by the invasion of illegal aliens!” he replied. “What’s ‘dehumanizing’ is when Democrats let illegal alien rapistsinto the country to attack our children. That is ‘dehumanizing’!”

He failed to explain exactly how people fleeing murderous dictatorships in Venezuela, El Salvador, and Nicaragua take rights and liberties from citizens.

As for those hideous assaults alleged by Miller, American citizens commit far more crimesthan undocumented immigrants.

The administration knows this. Until a few weeks ago, a Department of Justice website contained information confirming it.

Attorney General Pam Bondi shut down the website for “review” in “accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance.”

Why let data get in the way of propaganda?

‘Not safe’

Miller, Trump, and DeSantis insist the people ICE rounds up are “the worst of the worst, the most heinous of the most heinous.”

Again, the data show this is not true. Only 8%of undocumented detainees have been convicted of violent crimes.

This country is still — nominally — a nation of laws, and everyone thrown into an ICE dungeon is entitled to due process.

Even our supine Supreme Court agrees.

But Florida’s tropical tent prison makes it nearly impossible for detainees to consult with attorneys, meaning they could be deported without fair hearings.

A group of lawmakers, including Rep. Anna Eskamani and Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith, tried to visit the facility a couple of weeks ago. Inmates from the Orange County jail — which is in Eskamani’s and Smith’s districts — had been transferred there without being charged with anything.

Legislators pointed out Florida Statute 944.23 allows them to visit state facilities “at their pleasure.”

But DeSantis’ people insist the Everglades prison camp is not technically a state facility, not under the jurisdiction of the Department of Corrections.

Even though the state of Florida’s paying for it.

‘Emergency’ powers

Actually, the Trump administration admits it’s a state facility.

In a filing asking a federal judge to deny a request by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biodiversity to halt construction in Big Cypress, the administration argues the plaintiffs’ claim depends on showing a final federal “agency action,” which they can’t because the feds haven’t “implemented, authorized, directed or funded Florida’s temporary detention center.”

Indeed, they insist, “Florida is constructing and operating the facility using state funds on state lands.”

DeSantis, Uthmeier, and Pam Bondi need to get their stories straight.

By last Saturday, legal problems had been overcome and the gulag had miraculously become “safe.”

A group of legislators got a curated tour, during which what you saw depended on who you were—and whether you gave a damn about the human beings locked up in there.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida) took a thermometer with her, reporting an indoor temperature of at least 83 degrees.

Another Democratic lawmaker said some detainees were shackled to benches.

Republican state Sen. Blaise Ingoglia insisted it’s pretty nice: “I actually laid down in one of the beds and it was really comfortable.”

Sure. And everybody’s talked to a lawyer, there are no mosquitoes, and tropical storms? No problem!

Meanwhile back in reality, DeSantis’ vanity project has already flooded at least once.

Big Cypress is 96% wetlands. It’s wetlands’ job to flood.

When Ron DeSantis, claiming “emergency” powers, seized 39 square miles of Everglades land (nearly 25,000 acres) he claimed, “The environmental impact will be zero.”

DeSantis and the attorney general contend they’re merely taking over what Uthmeier calls “an old, virtually abandoned” airstrip.”

That airstrip is abandoned for a reason. It’s a relic of one of the most boneheaded ideas anyone in Florida ever had.

The Phoenix’s own Craig Pittmanrecently recounted how in 1968 a really stupid plan to build a huge airport in the Everglades galvanized support for preserving Florida’s River of Grass.

Fun fact: It was Florida’s then-Gov. Claude Kirk and his top aide Nathaniel Reed — who went on to help pass the Clean Water Act in 1972 and co-write the Endangered Species Act in 1973 — who led the fight to save Big Cypress.

Both were Republicans.

Vandals

Back then, some conservatives wanted to conserve, not destroy.

DeSantis and Uthmeier belong to a new generation of environmental vandals.

They want us to believe Big Cypress is wasted space with a few snakes, some bugs, a cadre of demonic alligators programmed to chase brown folks.

Inconsequential. Nothing to see there.

The ignorance is embarrassing.

To the Miccosukee and the Seminoles, the land is holy: “We live here. Our ancestors fought and died here. They are buried here,” said one tribal leader. “The Big Cypress is part of us, and we are a part of it.”

The land is not empty, or “abandoned.”

Manatees and dolphins give birth to their young in the estuaries on the eastern side. Mullet, trout, grouper, silver perch, spiny lobster, oysters, and clams thrive amongst the mangrove roots.

The mangrove branches harbor herons, pelicans, and egrets; there are red cockaded woodpeckers, fox squirrels, and Florida panthers in the pinelands, and some of the world’s rarest orchidsin the cypress swamps.

The land is a vital ecosystem for plants and animals and humans, too. Its water flows are essential to the aquifer on which South Floridians depend for their drinking water.

DeSantis likes to cast himself as the savior of the River of Grass and waxes petulant if you suggest his pet prison will damage the ecosystem: “I’m the governor who’s poured more money into Everglades restoration than anyone!”

And now he’s poured more money into Everglades destruction than anyone.

The camp will cost $450 milliona year to run.

Don’t be gaslit

Don’t let the man gaslight you: Claims they’re not desecrating Big Cypress are complete rubbish.

Friends of the Everglades has aerialphotographs showing the building of new roads and paving once-wild areas.

Runoff from asphalt pollutes. The huge trucks lumbering in and out of the site, carrying construction materials, also pollute.

You can’t house and feed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, without terrible damage to already fragile nature.

They’ll need pesticides to keep the Everglades’ vigorous mosquitoes at bay; they’ll need generators and microwaves and machinery to pump out the sewage.

The gulag is even sullying the night sky.

One of the lawsuitsfiled by conservation groups points out the huge prison lights make the place “look like Yankee Stadium, visible from 15-miles away.”

Big Cypress has been designated an International Dark Sky Place. You used to be able to see the Milky Way arching over the marshes and hammocks like a necklace of diamonds and pearls.

Trumpists probably don’t look up at the heavens. They don’t look down at the wonders of the earth.

So why would they care if one of Florida’s greatest treasures gets trashed?

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

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what fresh hell?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/trump-epa-chiefs-vision-would-create-an-apocalyptic-devastated-planet-critics-warn/

environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler is under fire for a Thursday speech laying out a vision for the agency that critics warn would unleash untold environmental devastation should it come to pass.

Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, delivered the remarks at the Nixon Library in southern California to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the EPA. The agency was established under the Nixon administration.

Wheeler also framed as positive steps the administration’s environmental protection rollbacks and attacks on science. The EPA chief said that “members of former administrations and progressives in Congress have elevated single issue advocacy—in many cases focused just on climate change—to virtue-signal to foreign capitals, over the interests of communities within their own country.”

“Communities that deal with the worst pollution in this country—and tend to be low-income and minority—face multiple environmental problems that need solving,” Wheeler said. He suggested President Donald Trump’s “opportunity zones” plan—recognized by expertsas a giveaway to the rich—as a remedy to environmental injustice.

wheeler declared it “very disappointing to see governors on the East Coast, such as [New York] Governor Cuomo, unilaterally block pipelines that would take natural gas from Pennsylvania to New York and New England.”

“We helped President Trump successfully implement the new NEPA regulations with the goal of reviewing federal permits within two years,” Wheeler said of the administration’s attack on the bedrock environmental law.

He also touted “a proposed rule that would remove onerous and expensive regulation of gene-edited plant protectants” and the administration’s “science transparency rules,” referring to what its critics call a “secret science rule” to limit scientific evidence the EPA will consider in its work.

Mustafa Santiago Ali, a former EPA official who helped found the agency’s environmental justice office, took issue with Wheeler’s plans for environmental justice.

“Every one of the actions the Trump administration has taken, either by weakening or rolling back basic air and water protections, has put #environmentaljustice communities in greater harm,” he tweeted Thursday. “No one believes a Trump second term would value Black and Brown lives!” he added.

Brett Hartl, government affairs director at conservation group Center for Biological Diversity, rebuffed Wheeler’s claimthat the Trump administration has been a champion of EPA’s mission.

“Wheeler and the Trump administration have done grave and lasting damage to the EPA by elevating polluters and their profits above all else, and no slick speech can change that fact,” said Hartl. He further accused Wheeler of being “ignorant of the immense environmental progress made over the last 50 years because Congress and President Nixon recognized when they established the EPA that no one has a right to pollute our air, water, or land.”

“If Wheeler’s vision becomes real in the decades ahead,” warned Hartl, “our children and grandchildren would inherit nothing less than an apocalyptic, devastated planet.”

Hartl continued: “Instead of following the proud bipartisan traditions of the EPA, Wheeler has decimated protections for our nations wetlands and rivers, rolled back protections for toxic pollutants spewed into the air, rubberstamped pesticides that cause brain damage in children, and utterly ignored the climate crisis. He is a horror-show, through and through.”

==

Endangered species at heart of environmental groups’ challenge Three California-based conservation advocates sued the EPA for endangering wildlife and public health as a result of exposure to a carcinogenic insecticide.

The lawsuit—filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Environmental Health, and Californians for Pesticide Reform—alleges that the Environmental Protection Agency and the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to properly weigh impacts on rare species from a chemical they call both a carcinogen and a neurotoxin

malathion

FMC to buy DuPont's pesticide business

==

new

https://www.ecowatch.com/emergency-trump-epa-pesticides-2638979880.html

no lnx many

Trump EPA OKs ‘Emergency’ Use of Bee-Killing Pesticide on 13.9 Million Acres

Jordan Simmons Jun. 25, 2019 01:08PM EST POLITICS

More than 40 percent of insects could go extinct globally in the next few decades. So why did the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last week OK the 'emergency' use of the bee-killing pesticide sulfoxaflor on 13.9 million acres?

EcoWatch teamed up with Center for Biological Diversity via EcoWatch Live on Facebook to find out why. Environmental Health Director and Senior Attorney Lori Ann Burd explained how there is a loophole in the The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act under section 18, "that allows for entities and states to request emergency exemptions to spraying pesticides where they otherwise wouldn't be allowed to spray."

In a press release sent to EcoWatch, the Center for Biological Diversity stated:

The approval includes 2019 crops of cotton and sorghum in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Ten of the 11 states have been granted the approvals for at least four consecutive years for the same "emergency." Five have been given approvals for at least six consecutive years.

If an occurrence is happening six years in a row, does that justify an emergency?

"This administration has been grossly abusing this exemption to allow the use of this one pesticide calledsulfoxafloron a vast acreage year after year," said Burd.

Our biodiversity is at serious risk. For example, in Texas — where 5.8 million acres got emergency exemption to spray — more than 800 native bee species and eight species of bumblebees reside. It is also an important migration route for monarch butterflies.

"Monarch butterflies and eight species of bumblebees do overlap with Texas counties where there is sulfoxaflor spraying," said Burd. "Even at subacute, very low doses, sufoxaflor will have a very dramatic effect on bumblebee reproduction." The purpose of sulfoxaflor is to kill insects.

Farmers have only gotten away with spraying sulfoxaflor because they were granted emergency. The EPA has not approved the lethal insecticide sulfoxaflor to be used on sorghum because it is known to attract bees. At one point the EPA did allow the use of sulfoxaflor on cotton, however the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated the approval — the result of a lawsuit brought to them by beekeepers.

In a summary following the vacated approval in 2015, The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit published conclusions:

The panel held that because the EPA's decision to unconditionally register sulfoxaflor was based on flawed and limited data, the EPA's unconditional approval was not supported by substantial evidence. The panel vacated the EPA's unconditional registration because given the precariousness of bee populations, leaving the EPA's registration of sulfoxaflor in place risked more potential environmental harm than vacating it.

==

not all reg here, but links

EPA Considers 300,000-Acre Expansion for Bee-Toxic Pesticide

The Center for Biological Diversity Thursday urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to deny Bayer CropScience's request to allow the highly bee-toxic pesticide flupyradifurone to be sprayed on tobacco in states like Kentucky and North Carolina.

Keep reading...

==

==

https://www.alternet.org/heres-one-astonishing-fact-about-earths-biological-diversity-truly-out-world

aeon

For centuries, humans have endeavoured to discover and describe the sum of Earth’s biological diversity. Scientists and naturalists have catalogued species from all continents and oceans, from the depths of Earth’s crust to the highest mountains, and from the most remote jungles to our most populated cities. This grand effort sheds light on the forms and behaviours that evolution has made possible, while serving as the foundation for understanding the common descent of life. Until recently, our planet was thought to be inhabited by nearly 10 million species (107). Though no small number, this estimate is based almost solely on species that can be seen with the naked eye.

What about smaller species such as bacteria, archaea, protists and fungi? Collectively, these microbial taxa are the most abundant, widespread and longest-evolving forms of life on the planet. What is their contribution to global biodiversity? When microorganisms are taken into account, recent studiessuggest that Earth might be home to a staggering 1 trillion (1012) species. If true, then the grand effort to discover Earth’s biodiversity has only come within a 1,000th of 1 per cent of all species on the planet.

Estimating microbial diversity even in the most ordinary of habitats presents a unique set of challenges. For more than a century, scientists identified microbial species by first culturing them on Petri dishes and then characterising cellular properties, along with aspects of their physiology such as thermal tolerances, the substrates they consume, or the enzymes they produce. Such approaches dramatically underestimate diversity, not only because it is difficult to grow the vast majority of microorganisms, but also because unrelated microbial species can perform similar functions and are unlikely to be distinguished by their appearance.

During the mid-1990s, a growing number of microbiologists began to abandon cultivation techniques in favour of identifying organisms by directly sequencing nucleic acids – DNA – from ocean water, leaf surfaces, wetland sediments, and even the biofilms inside of showerheads. Over the past decade, these methods have been dramatically refined so that millions of individual microbes can be sampled at once. With this high-throughput approach, we have learned that a single gramme of agricultural soil can routinely contain more than 10,000 species. Similarly, we know that nearly 10 trillion (1013) bacterial cells make up a human’s microbiome. These microbes not only aid in their host’s digestion and nutrition, but also represent an extension of its immune system. Looking beyond ourselves, microbes are found in Earth’s crust, its atmosphere, and the full depth of its oceans and ice caps. In total, the estimated number of microbial cells on Earth hovers around a nonillion (1030), a number that outstrips imagination and exceeds the estimated number of stars in the Universe. Naturally, this begs the question of how many species might actually exist.

Long lists of species have been made for nearly every ecosystem on Earth, with nearly 20,000 plant and animal species discovered each year. Many of these species happen to be beetles, but reports of rodents, fish, reptiles and even primates are not uncommon. While exciting to biologists and the public alike, new plant and animal species contribute only around 2 per cent per year to the total number of species, a sign that we might be approaching a near-complete census of those organisms on the planet.

In sharp contrast, deep lineages containing untold species are being described at a rapid rate in the microbial world. A few years ago, from a single aquifer in Colorado, scientists found 35 new bacterial phyla; a phylum is a broad group containing thousands, tens of thousands or, for microbes, even millions of related species. The phyla discovered in that one aquifer amounted to 15 per cent of all previously recognised bacterial phyla on Earth. To put this in context, humans belong to the phylum Chordata, but so do more than 65,000 other species of animals that possess a notochord (or skeletal rod), including mammals, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and tunicates. Such findings suggest that we are at the tip of the iceberg in terms of describing diversity of the microbial biosphere.

...

omfg

https://www.ecowatch.com/bee-killing-pesticides-in-national-wildlife-refuges-2593236939.html

trump Admin Reverses Ban on 'Bee-Killing' Pesticides in National Wildlife Refuges

The Trump administration has lifted an Obama-era ban on the use of genetically modified crops and pesticides linked to bee decline in certain national wildlife refuges where farming is allowed, Reuters reported Saturday.

In a memo signed Aug. 2, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Gregory J. Sheehan said the move was necessary to provide adequate food for waterfowl.

"There may be situations, however, where use of GMO crop seeds is essential to best fulfill the purposes of the refuge and the needs of birds and other wildlife," Sheehan wrote.

Boosting waterfowl populations dovetails with the interests of sportspeople who hunt ducks and other birds, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has made expanding hunting on national lands a priority, Reuters reported.

But environmental groups argue the decision comes at the expense of other species.

"Industrial agriculture has no place on public lands dedicated to conservation of biological diversity and the protection of our most vulnerable species, including pollinators like bumble bees and monarch butterflies. The Trump administration's approval to use toxic pesticides and genetically modified crops is an insult to our national wildlife refuges and the wildlife that rely on them," President and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife Jamie Rappaport Clark said in a statement.

The pesticides in question, neonicotinoids, have been banned in the EU after research linked them to the decline in the populations of bees and other pollinators.

Jim Kurth, head of the refuge system under Obama, announced the ban in 2014, arguing that the use of neonicotinoids led to plants whose tissues harmed "non-target" species. Moreover, he said that "refuges throughout the country successfully meet wildlife management objectives without" genetically modified crops or the pesticides they are engineered to withstand, Reuters reported.

Defenders of Wildlife further noted that the populations of game birds like geese and ducks are currently doing fine without the help of genetically modified crops.

Sheehan, however, has reversed the blanket ban and said that the use of genetically modified crops and neonicotinoids would be considered in the more than 50 farming-friendly refuges on a case-by-case basis.

The move came a day after California's Department of Pesticide Regulation released a risk assessment finding that the use of four neonicotinoids on certain crops, including the corn and sorghum often grown in refuges, could cause more harm to pollinators than previously thought, The Center for Biological Diversity reported.

"Agricultural pesticides, especially bee-killing neonics, have no place on our national wildlife refuges," senior Center for Biological Diversity attorney Hannah Connor said. "This huge backward step will harm bees and other pollinators already in steep decline simply to appease pesticide-makers and promote mono-culture farming techniques that trigger increased pesticide use. It's senseless and shameful."

==

omfg-s

https://www.democracynow.org/2018/7/25/profit_over_grizzlies_trump_admin_tries

dn

GONZÁLEZ: Well, you mentioned greenhouse gas emissions, but the Trump administration is also seeking to revoke California’s authority to set its own tougher automobile emissions standards. On Tuesday, acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the U.S. needs a single standard for fuel efficiency for cars and trucks.

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Yeah, this is really outrageous, because the way our Clean Air Act works is it allows states to set standards if they’re higher than the federal government. And so, for 48 years running now, California has had a higher standard. It’s had that through administrations Democratic and Republican, conservative and liberal. No one’s had a problem with it, until Trump. And so, partly, this is his effect—efforts to reduce any attempt to control global warming, but it’s also clearly a personal agenda to attack California, which he believes is just generally a hostile element to him personally, and so, consequently, we have this incredibly irrational act, especially when, for example, you’ve got Barrasso talking about state’s rights: “Let’s empower the states.” Well, these Republicans only want to empower the states when the states have a lower protective standard. The second a state has a higher standard, all of a sudden all concerns about state rights go out the window, and we have to go to a federal single authority that’s going to reduce environmental protection.

AMY GOODMAN: Kierán, what about the record of the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke? You have ThinkProgress saying documents released by the Department of Interior, then retracted a day later, revealed the agency officials dismissed evidence that public lands provide numerous benefits in favor of prioritizing fossil fuel interests, along with ranching and logging, and then CNN reporting Zinke is meeting with people that are not on the public record. For example, met with Congressman Chris Collins, a New York Republican, who was the first in Congress to endorse Trump’s presidential candidacy. That was according to the official calendar. But Zinke’s calendar didn’t show who else was in the room: three representatives of a company that do business with the National Park Service—one of about of a dozen instances uncovered by CNN of Zinke’s calendar omitting who he’s actually meeting with.

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Yeah. Zinke, I think, is going to go down as one of the worst interior secretaries in history. And his actions are very, very similar to what Scott Pruitt was doing over at EPA before he was forced to resign. And that is that he’s aggressively trying to avoid all environmental laws. He’s meeting with industry groups constantly and then hiding that, rather than simply admitting to what he’s doing in public. And the agenda is always the same: You know, what can he do to allow public lands to be destroyed? What can he do to allow more oil and gas drilling, even if it’s polluting local communities, poisoning children? It’s really a disaster.

He has turned this agency, which is supposed to be in charge of America’s land, air, water and species, into a handout program for industry, and then going so far as to just erase all this from his calendar, from his meeting notes, to take decisions from lower officials who are trying to do their job, and erase all references to issues which harms their agenda. And in particular what you’ll see is that protecting public lands, especially on national monuments, is really good for local economies, but instead they’ll erase all that information and say, “Oh, this is hurting local economies.” And it’s not just immoral, it’s illegal. And it’s the reason why this agency gets sued so much.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And staying on the Interior Department and Zinke, the department has also commissioned an expedited environmental review of the impact of leasing part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Now, this is a decades-long battle that the industry, the oil and gas industry, has not been able to win. What is happening here? And what could be the potential impact of this new expedited review?

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Yeah, this is very concerning. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, off the coast of Alaska, has been sought after by the oil industry for many, many decades now and has always been stopped, because it’s such a crown jewel of environmental protection, and there are so many other areas available for drilling. So, Zinke now has expedited efforts to review proposed drilling up there, brought on millions of dollars of new money, which apparently don’t exist to do anything else in government, more staff, and he wants to push through, at a very rapid clip, a decision to open this up to more drilling. And he’s throwing all the environmental standards, review processes out the window. And I think it’s partly because he knows time is limited up there for him, and he wants this to become his legacy, the guy who opened up America’s biggest, most important wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

AMY GOODMAN: Kierán Suckling, we are speaking to you in Portland, Oregon. In Yosemite right now, the national park, thousands of people are being evacuated because of terrible wildfires. I want to ask you about something else that happened in Oregon. Earlier this month, Donald Trump pardoned Dwight Hammond and his son Steven Hammond, two Oregon cattle ranchers who were convicted in 2012 of committing arson on federal lands. Prosecutors say the Hammonds set the fires to cover up their illegal deer poaching. Their conviction sparked armed right-wing militiamen, led by Ammon Bundy, to take over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, provoking a 41-day armed standoff in 2016. Can you comment on this and what message President Trump was sending with this, these pardons?

KIERÁN SUCKLING: This is very disturbing, because the Hammonds not only were arsonists who set fire to our public lands, threatening firefighters who were out there, but have a long history of threatening to kill federal officials. And when the Bundy militia group came up to support them when they were prosecuted, they came up there with the message of not just let’s help the Hammonds, but let’s give all of America’s public lands away to industry and state groups.

And so, when Trump is pardoning these people, he’s really signaling—sending a signal to this right-wing base to say, “Hey, anti-government extremism, threats of violence against those you don’t like, against the government, are acceptable.” They’re encouraged. And, in fact, earlier, when he pardoned Joe Arpaio, another very controversial action, well, it turns out Joe Arpaio, Sheriff Joe, was also a supporter of this Bundy group and this radical, violent agenda. And I think it goes along with Trump gearing up this violent undercurrent in America to support him and to drive fear into others.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Last week, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh submitted to the Senate his responses to a lengthy questionnaire as part of the confirmation process. Responding to a question about the 10 most significant cases over which he sat, Kavanaugh cited his dissenting opinion in White Stallion Energy Center v. EPA, in which he argued that the EPA must consider financial costs when deciding whether to regulate emissions from power plants. Kavanaugh wrote in the questionnaire, quote, “In my view, it was unreasonable—and therefore unlawful under the Administrative Procedure Act—for EPA not to consider the costs imposed by regulations in determining whether such regulations were 'appropriate and necessary.'” I’m wondering your thoughts on, if Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed for the Supreme Court, what the impact of this would be on environmental laws in the future.

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Well, it would be extraordinary. I mean, Trump has already had one appointee on the Supreme Court. If he gets the second, he will likely be able to control the whole judicial agenda for environmental protection in this country. And that’s incredibly important, because right now the strongest, most powerful force of resistance against Trump is our legal system. And that’s because virtually everything he wants to do is illegal. The people he’s put in place, like Zinke and Pruitt, to carry out his agenda have such disdain for governance. They don’t even know how to do governmental process properly, so they’re continually sued, they’re continually found guilty. And that’s keeping America on track, this independent judiciary. So, if Trump captures the Supreme Court, we’re going to find he’s got an open agenda to do whatever he wants. And so, it’s very, very dangerous and disheartening.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have a few seconds, but, Kierán Suckling, your organization, the Center for Biological Diversity, has sued the Trump administration 81 times in this last year and a half? Have you had any success?

KIERÁN SUCKLING: Yeah, we’ve actually won most of those cases. It’s been about one a week. And of those that have completed, we’ve won most of those cases. And it just shows you the power of our independent legal system and our independent judiciary to address excesses of power, even by the president of the United State

seriously? kneejerk autoresponse? "what about...?" scam?

https://theconversation.com/green-baiting-lawmakers-are-accusing-environmentalists-of-doubling-as-foreign-agents-98924

green-baiting

Two congressional committees led by prominent Republicans are looking into whether some U.S. environmental groups are acting on behalf of foreign countries.

As an environmental lawyer and professor with ample international experience, this probe troubles me. I’m concerned that these efforts may mark the start of an attack on free speech that discourages efforts to improve American environmental policies.

The probe

News of this investigation broke when Rep. Rob Bishop, who chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, and Rep. Bruce Westerman, who leads the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, formally notified the Natural Resources Defense Council of their concerns in early June.

Their letter accused the NRDC, one of the nation’s biggest environmental groups, of criticizing U.S. environmental policies while engaging in “self-censorship” regarding China and the “ruling Chinese Communist Party.” If it is acting as an agent for Chinese interests, the lawmakers said, the group should register as such as required by law.

Their letter also requested information related to the group’s disclosure policies.

Bishop and Westerman sent the Center for Biological Diversity a similar query pertaining to that environmentalist group’s advocacy regarding the U.S. military base in Okinawa, Japan.

And the two Republicans have asked the Pentagon for details and documents regarding the nonprofits suing the military on environmental grounds. The lawmakers acknowledged that these lawsuits may “represent sincere and justified concerns about the effect of federal actions on the environment.” But they also speculated that “foreign adversaries” can perhaps leverage these legal actions to “reduce U.S. defense capabilities.”

Bob Deans, the NRDC’s director of strategic engagement, denied that it was doing a foreign country’s bidding. Instead, “we work on behalf of every American to protect our people against dangerous pollution and leave our children a livable world,” he said.

Rather than just refute the allegations, Center for Biological Diversity Executive Director Kierán Suckling questioned the motives for this investigation. He called on Bishop “to release all communications between himself and industry groups seeking to destroy America’s natural heritage” and suggested that the Utah Republican was attacking conservation groups at the behest of fossil fuel companies.

The probe could spread to other environmental groups, The Hill reported.

Chinese activities

The NRDC is a U.S.-based nonprofit with offices around the globe with an official mission“to ensure the rights of all people to clean air, clean water, and healthy communities.”

The group’s priorities in China are generally the same as what it calls for in America and elsewhere: boosting energy efficiency, cutting coal consumption, and cleaning up ports and waterways.

I am somewhat familiar with the NRDC’s work in China because I traveled there in 2014with two other U.S. environmental lawyers at the NRDC’s request. The group had asked us to meet on an informal basis with Chinese government officials. The purpose of these meetings in Beijng was to explain how the U.S. government handles violations of environmental laws and damages to natural resources. In light of China’s own “war on pollution,” their government was looking for good models and guidance.

The National People’s Congress subsequently amended Chinese environmental laws, incorporating some of the concepts we discussed – all of which were modeled on the U.S. legal system.

There was no hint or suggestion during those meetings that our access to Chinese officials was conditioned on anyone speaking favorably of China’s environmental efforts. Nor was there any reason to expect the NRDC to take any particular political stance back home in the U.S. because of those interactions.

Not surprisingly, the NRDC has complimented China for strengthening its environmental laws. But the NRDC has also criticized China’s staggeringly dirty air and water and its vast greenhouse gas emissions.

At the same time, the NRDC has gone out of its way to oppose the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation policies – like most of the nation’s big green groups.

Okinawa dugongs

The Center for Biological Diversity allegedly inappropriate overseas activities have to do with dugongs. The endangered marine mammals, which resemble manatees, inhabit the waters surrounding the Okinawa Islands.

The center, which opposes U.S. military plans to build a new American airbase in Henoko Bay, has been leading coalitions of U.S. and Japanese environmental groups that have filed lawsuits that have delayed and could prevent the planned airbase construction.

Japanese protesters objecting to American military construction in Okinawa are concerned about the potential impact on dugongs, marine mammals that resemble manatees.

AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi

The letters to both green groups call on them to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. That law requires all people and organizations acting in the U.S. on behalf of foreign countries to register with the Justice Department as foreign agents.

Failing to do this is a crime, but prosecutions have been rare since 1966. The case against former Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his aide Rick Gates, who are accused of violating this act, is the biggest in years.

I believe that requiring these groups to register as foreign agents might hamper their work within the U.S. for two reasons. First, policymakers and lawmakers might suspect that they were more interested in working on behalf of foreign governments and interests than protecting the environment. Second, there could be repercussions in terms of these nonprofits’ funding, finances and reputation.

This new GOP strategy can be compared to red-baiting, the practice of persecuting and undermining people by accusing them of being communists, socialists or anarchists, that began in the Cold War. I believe these Republicans are “green-baiting” environmental groups to persecute them. At the same time, they are casting doubt on the real goals of these groups’ advocacy, thereby undermining it.

Ultimately, the most dangerous thing about this probe may have to do with free speech rights. Because praising a foreign country’s environmental record while criticizing U.S. policy is possible without committing treason, the only rationale I can find for this investigation is that it might stifle environmentalists.

==

insects 115k studied

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17052018/climate-change-animal-extinction-global-warming-habitat-loss-plants-biodiversity-paris-agreement

https://www.ecowatch.com/keystone-xl-approval-2538558599.html

Inside the Trump Admin's Fight to Keep the Keystone XL Approval Process Secret

By Steve Horn

At a Feb. 21 hearing, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that the Trump administration must either fork over documents showing how the U.S. Department of State reversed an earlier decision and ultimately came to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, or else provide a substantial legal reason for continuing to withhold them. The federal government has an order to deliver the goods, one way or the other, by March 21.

DeSmog has reviewed the court evidence from the environmental groups bringing the case, records which help illuminate their argument that the government is, in fact, withholding such documents. The judge will decide if those documents, legally, should be made public.

The case, which began in March 2017, pits the Indigenous Environmental Network and the North Coast River Alliance against the State Department, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of interior and TransCanada, the owner of Keystone XL. During his first week in office, Donald Trump signed a memorandumcalling for the State Department to perform an expedited 60-day permit review of the pipeline. Two months later, the State Department gave Keystone XL the permit it needed to cross the U.S.-Canada border.

Under the Obama administration, the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry oil from Alberta's tar sands, underwent a years-long environmental review process which culminated in President Barack Obama nixing it in November 2015. For the better part of the past decade, the pipeline has served as a central mobilizing force for the environmental movement.

Dispute Over Records

At the center of this case is a dispute over the administrative records of federal agencies, which in other lawsuits are routinely made public as part of the pre-trial process.

Generally, releasing such documents gives a snapshot of the full deliberative process behind federal agencies' decisions. DeSmog, in fact, published a story on such documents in 2015 related to a different tar sands pipeline project, which involved Enbridge's Alberta Clipper (also known as Line 67), part of a broader pipeline system DeSmog calls the "Keystone XLClone."

In the TransCanada case, the State Department has argued for keeping these pre-trial records sealed while the plaintiffs, the environmental groups, have argued they should be made public. These documents, which might include emails and memos, would offer the plaintiffs and the general public an idea of how the Trump administration decided to approve the Keystone XL.

The plaintiffs say that not all of those records have been turned over.

"Federal Defendants have wrongly omitted an unknown number of emails and other internal communications considered by the agencies during their review of the Keystone XL pipeline," the plaintiffs in the case argued in court documents on Jan. 8.

In an affidavit exhibited as part of that filing, Cecilia Segal, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, cited a Dec. 19 phone call she had with the federal defendants, in which they said that agency emails and other records do not need to be disclosed as part of the case.

Another letter exhibited as part of the Jan. 8 filing, written on Nov. 30 by attorneys for the Center for Biological Diversity, further complained that the documents already handed over were not adequately comprehensive or organized in a manner useful for the case. And many documents, they allege, seem to be missing entirely and without explanation.

"We are concerned that both the State Department and Service have withheld records as privileged without identifying and certifying them on a privilege log," wrote the attorneys.

=-

https://www.ecowatch.com/fracking-waste-gulf-of-mexico-2515883905.html

Lawsuit Launched Against Trump EPA for Approving Fracking Waste Dumping Into Gulf of Mexico

The Center for Biological Diversity filed on Thursday a formal notice of intent to sue the Trump administration for allowing oil companies to dump waste from fracking and drilling into the Gulf of Mexico without evaluating the dangers to sea turtles, whales or other imperiled marine life.

In September the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a Clean Water Act permit for new and existing offshore oil and gas platforms operating in federal waters off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. The permit allows oil companies to dump unlimited amounts of waste fluid, including chemicals involved in fracking, into the Gulf of Mexico.

"The Trump administration is letting the oil industry turn our oceans into toxic-waste dumps. The EPA's supposed to protect water quality, not help pollute the Gulf," said Kristen Monsell, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It's time for the courts to remind this agency that its mission is to safeguard the environment and public health."

Thursday's notice letter highlighted the fact that the agency's approval of the permit without studying risks to imperiled species in the Gulf of Mexico is a violation of the federal Endangered Species Act.

Fracking chemicals and other contaminants in produced water raise grave ecological concerns because the Gulf of Mexico provides important habitat for whales, sea turtles and fish—as well as being federally designated critical habitat for imperiled loggerhead sea turtles. Dolphins and other species in the Gulf are still suffering the lingering destructive effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Federal waters off Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi host the largest concentration of offshore oil and gas drilling activities in the country. Previous records requests revealed that oil companies dumped more than 75 billion gallons of wastewater into these waters in 2014 alone. Records also show that fracking has been on the rise in the Gulf of Mexico, and the EPA has failed to conduct any meaningful review of the environmental impacts of dumping fracking waste into the water.

In October the Trump administration announced plans to auction off more than 76 million acres of Gulf of Mexico waters to oil companies. That lease sale, which is scheduled for March 2018, will be the largest oil sale in U.S. history. It includes federal waters off the coasts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and could vastly expand drilling and fracking in the Gulf.

"Only the courts can stop Trump's assault on our oceans," Monsell said. "Oil-industry pollution was already a problem in the Gulf, but this administration isn't even trying to protect wildlife from fracking chemicals. We need to fight back on behalf of marine wildlife."

At least 10 fracking chemicals routinely used in offshore fracking could kill or harm a broad variety of marine species, including marine mammals and fish, Center for Biological Diversity scientists have found. The California Council on Science and Technology has identified some common fracking chemicals to be among the most toxic in the world to marine animals.

Today's 60-day notice of intent to sue is required before a lawsuit can be filed to compel the federal government to comply with the Endangered Species Act.

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==

https://www.ecowatch.com/elephants-lions-trump-2511386998.html

Lawsuit Challenges Trump Administration Over New Elephant and Lion Trophy Policies, Still in Effect Despite Trump's Tweets

The Center for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Trump administration Monday for allowing U.S. hunters to import elephant and lion trophies from Zimbabwe. The lawsuit aims to protect animals and resolve confusion created by the administration's contradictory announcements in recent days.

The suit comes days after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service abruptly reversed an Obama-era ban on elephant trophy imports based on catastrophic elephant population declines. Fish and Wildlife also recently greenlighted lion trophy imports from Zimbabwe, despite the controversial killing of Cecil the Lion in Zimbabwe in 2015.

After massive public outcry, including from established Republican politicians and pundits, President Trump and Interior Sec. Ryan Zinke announced a "hold" on issuing elephant trophy import permits late Friday night. President Trump suggested on Twitter that a new big-game trophy decision would be forthcoming. Unfortunately, the new federal policies allowing imports of elephant and lion trophies—referred to as "positive enhancement findings" under the U.S. Endangered Species Act—remain in effect.

"The Trump administration must clearly and permanently halt imports of lion and elephant trophies to protect these amazing animals from extinction," said Tanya Sanerib, a senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. "Trump's abrupt backpedaling after public outcry, while appreciated, shows how arbitrary this deplorable decision was. These incredibly imperiled creatures need a lot more than vague promises."...

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https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-budget-wildlife-2505448120.html

Trump Budget Undercuts U.S. Commitment to Global Wildlife Conservation

By William H. Funk

Proposed funding cuts to environmental programs in President Trump's proposed 2018 budget have drawn anxious attention from around the world. But while the biggest numbers deal with rolling back the Obama administration's climate change initiatives, more subtle withdrawals of federal support from lesser known international programs threaten the continued existence of some of the planet's most iconic animals.

President Trump's 2018 budget proposes a 32 percent across-the-board shrinkage of U.S. foreign assistance, affecting hundreds of sustainability, health and environmental programs.

As comparatively paltry as a few million dollars retracted here and there from a $1.15 trillion federal budget may seem, for those desperately striving through underfunded programs to preserve the world's wildlife, the loss of monetary and moral support from the U.S. could be devastating.

And wildlife wouldn't be the only victims. The societal havoc wreaked by unchallenged trafficking cartels, and the loss of important tourist income due to vanished elephants, lions and giraffes resulting in abandoned safaris, could directly impact poor communities in Africa and Asia.

It remains to be seen if the U.S. Congress will embrace Trump's draconian cuts for 2018. But even if the legislature disallows the reductions next year, the administration still has between three and seven years left to run. And it seems unlikely that the president will shift very far away from his professed "America First" policies

...

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http://www.alternet.org/environment/invasive-species-are-killing-people-decimating-wildlife-and-costing-billions-dollars

https://www.ecowatch.com/bluefin-tuna-endangered-species-2470265690.html

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https://www.ecowatch.com/marine-extinction-warming-2494757460.html

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/09052017/foia-donald-trump-interior-department-missing-climate-change-data-websites

As Donald Trump's administration continues to strip climate change information from federal websites, two advocacy groups and a conservation biologist are using a novel technique to try to force the government to republish the pages.

A new provision in open records law, added by Congress last year, requires agencies to publish electronically any information that is requested at least three times through the federal Freedom of Information Act, so long as that information is not otherwise exempt from disclosure. Last week, the advocacy groups and the biologist submitted identical requests for climate change information, hoping to trigger that provision, and they just might succeed.

"The law is pretty explicit," said Aaron Mackey, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes transparency. "The law just says, if you get three, then you have to affirmatively disclose it. This should work."

The effort by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Media and Democracy, and Stuart Pimm, a professor at Duke University, is the latest in a broad campaign by scientists and advocates to cache federal data about climate change and other topics that they fear may be deleted by the Trump administration.

Volunteers have gathered for massive "data rescue" events to download information. Advocates have sued. Now, the groups are trying to use the Freedom of Information Act and the new provision to get the government, starting with the Interior Department, to re-post its old climate change webpages.

Last month, the Department of Interior quietly edited its climate change page, removing an extensive discussion of the effects of global warming and the department's work on the issue and replacing it with two short paragraphs that do not discuss any details of the impacts of climate change. Instead, it provided links to its bureau's climate change pages, including the page of the Bureau of Land Management,  which no longer exists, and others that have been edited.

"The changes basically remove any information about the causes of climate change, most notably mankind's contribution of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere," said Amy Atwood, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. "It's just absurd."

Paul Ross, a spokesman for the Interior Department, said in a statement emailed to InsideClimate News that "the Department's website has been updated periodically over the past few months to include additional priorities of the Department under new leadership." He declined to address the public records requests.

The department has 20 business days to reply to the requests. Atwood said her group would appeal if the requests are denied.

The new requirement in the open records law was an attempt to codify what has long been considered best practice, Mackey said. The overarching goal of the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, is to make government more transparent, so it encourages agencies to publish information that is frequently requested or may be of broad interest, such as administrative decisions. Many agencies, including the Interior Department, have online "reading rooms" where they make such documents available.

Mackey said that while the spirit of the law implies that agencies should publish information that's requested three times in an easily accessible area, like an online reading room, it contains no explicit direction beyond requiring them to make it "available for public inspection in an electronic format."

After the EPA removed its climate change page, it published an archived version following a series of FOIA requests. But it also removed links that would have made that archived page easy to find from the EPA's homepage. Atwood said the groups would use the same FOIA tactics to retrieve the information if the EPA deletes the archived page, or if the EPA or any other agency removes similar information.

This isn't the first time the groups have attempted to use the FOIA provision. In March, they submitted requests to eight federal agencies seeking hundreds of environmental data sets out of concern that the Trump administration would remove them from public view.

Atwood said they've gotten a range of responses so far. The Department of Agriculture has been working with them to try to identify and publish the data, she said, while others have simply rejected their requests or claimed—sometimes erroneously, according to Atwood—that the data was already published. The group is currently preparing to appeal those denied requests, and ultimately will go to court if the appeals fail.

The Center for Biological Diversity has also used more conventional FOIA requests to try to pry loose documents from the Trump administration, including records regarding whether leaders at several agencies directed their staffs to stop using the term "climate change." Last week, the group sued the EPA in attempt to compel it to release emails and a schedule for its administrator, Scott Pruitt, after the agency denied a request seeking those records. Atwood said she expects to file an average of one lawsuit each week as the group's FOIA requests are denied.

"We're really in a position to be able to pursue information from the Trump administration," Atwood said, "and we're doing it at every turn.

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The Center for Biological Diversity "was founded beneath the ancient ponderosa pines of New Mexico’s Gila wilderness, where Kierán Suckling, Peter Galvin, and Todd Schulke met while surveying owls for the U.S. Forest Service. All three were in their early twenties, with a passion for wild places; Kierán was a doctoral student in philosophy, Peter was training in conservation biology, and Todd had a background running outdoor-education programs for high-risk kids." [1] They are a partner organization of Global Population Speak Out. [2]

Kieran Suckling, Executive Director

Sarah Bergman, Assistant Executive Director

Rose Braz, Climate Campaign Coordinator

Todd Schulke, Forest Policy Analyst

Contents  [hide]

1 Board

1.1 Directors (2009)

2 Funders (2011) [5]

2.1 Foundations

3 Public Citizen Oppose Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill

4 Contact

5 Resources and articles

5.1 Related Sourcewatch articles

5.2 References

Board

Accessed January 2013: [3]

Marcey Olajos, Board Chair

Matt Frankel

Todd Schulke

Randi Spivak

Stephanie Zill, Treasurer

FOUNDERS ADVISORY BOARD

Peter Galvin

Robin Silver

Directors (2009)

Accessed October 2009: [4]

Marcey Olajos, Board Chair

Peter Galvin

Katherine A. Meyer

Scott Power

Todd Schulke

Robin Silver

Funders (2011) [5]

$100,000+ - Anonymous (1), The Katherine L. Alden Fund, Michael Leuthold, Steve Leuthold Family Foundation, Marcey Olajos, Estate of Cheryl Scott, Jeffrey S. & Constance H. Woodman, Jeff & Connie Woodman Foundation

$50,000+ - Anonymous (1), Richard G. Pritzlaff, Biophilia Foundation, Lindsey Quesinberry & Nancy Bower, Elsie Wattson Lamb

$25,000+ - Anonymous (2), Fred Stanback & Alice Stanback, Sungevity

Foundations

Argosy Foundation, Leonard X. Bosak and Bette M. Kruger Foundation, Educational Foundation of America, Environment Now, Firedoll Foundation, Frankel Family Foundation, Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund,Kisco Cares Foundation, Libra Foundation, Living Springs Foundation, Marisla Foundation, George and Miriam Martin Foundation, McCune Foundation, McIntosh Foundation, New-Land Foundation, O'Keefe Family Foundation, Proteus Fund, Rockefeller Family Fund, Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, Andrew Sabin Family Foundation, Sandler Foundation, Sierra Club, San Gorgonio Chapter,Temper of the Times Foundation, Turner Foundation, Wallace Genetic Fund, Wallace Global Fund, Weeden Foundation, Wilburforce Foundation, Woodtiger Fund

Public Citizen Oppose Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill

On May 17, 2010 an alliance of 15 social justice, environmental and community organizations joined together to stop the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act from passing. The coalition, called Climate Reality Check, believed Congress needed to head back to the drawing board and start over. The coalition included the Center for Biological Diversity, Public Citizen, among others. Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen stated, "It's not accurate to call this a climate bill. This is nuclear energy- promoting, oil drilling-championing, coal mining-boosting legislation with a weak carbon pricing mechanism thrown in."

Grassroots members of the Sierra Club also opposed the initial bill, stating that the national organization's position was nuanced and too supportive of the legislation.[6]

Contact

Web: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org

Resources and articles

Related Sourcewatch articles

Working Assets

Capitol Power Plant

District of Columbia and coal

Douglas Bevington

Monica Bond

Noah Greenwald

Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act

William J. Snape III

References

Jump up? Our STory, Center for Biological Diversity, accessed October 27, 2009.

Jump up? Global Population Speak Out Partners, organizational web page, accessed March 8, 2015 .

Jump up? Center for Biological Diversity Board, organizational web page, accessed January 1, 2013.

Jump up? Directors, Center for Biological Diversity, accessed October 27, 2009.

Jump up? Center for Biological Diversity 2011 Annual Report, organizational web page, accessed January 1, 2013.

Jump up? "Not All Environmentalists Pleased with Climate Legislation" Joshua Frank, Truthout, June 20, 2010.

Categories: United StatesEnvironment

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http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/

Center for Biological Diversity (Center), based in Tucson, Arizona, is a nonprofit membership organization with approximately 625,000 members and online activists, known for its work protecting endangered species through legal action, scientific petitions, creative media and grassroots activism. The Center has offices and staff in New Mexico,Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Alaska, Vermont, Florida and Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1989 by Kieran Suckling, Peter Galvin, Todd Schulke and Robin Silver.[1]

Contents  [hide]

1 Background

2 Press

3 Rubber Dodo award for anti-environmental record

4 See also

5 Notes

6 External links

Background[edit]

Given a small grant by the Fund for Wild Nature, the organization started in 1989 as a small group by the name of Greater Gila Biodiversity Project, with the objective to protect endangered species and critical habitat in the southwest.The organization later grew and became the Center for Biological Diversity. Kieran Suckling], Peter Galvin, and Todd Schulke founded the organization in response to what they perceived as a failure on the part of the United States Forest Service to protect imperiled species from logging, grazing, and mining. As surveyors in New Mexico, the three men discovered "a rare Mexican spotted owl nest in an old-growth tree",[1] but their discovery was overshadowed by Forest Service plans to lease the land to timber companies; Suckling, Galvin, and Schulke believed that it was within the Forest Service’s mission to save sensitive species like the Mexican Spotted Owl from harm, and that the government had shirked[peacock term] its duty in deference to corporate interests.[citation needed]

Suckling, Galvin and Schulke went to the media to register their outrage with success: the old-growth tree was allowed to stand, and this success led to the founding of the Center for Biological Diversity.

Initially, the Center focused on issues specific to the Southwestern United States, but today its mission encompasses far-reaching problems such as global threats tobiological diversity and climate change. One of the Center's biggest recent victories was in 2011, when it reached a historic legal settlement with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service compelling the agency to make progress on protecting 757 imperiled but previously neglected animals and plants. The Center employs a group of paid and pro bono attorneys to use litigation to effect change, and claims a 93 percent success rate for their lawsuits.[1]

Press[edit]

On 13 June 2007, the Center spoke out against a Bush administration proposal to reduce the protected area for spotted owls in the United States Pacific Northwest. According to Noah Greenwald, the group's representative in the Northwest, the proposed habitat cut is "typical of an administration that is looking to reduce protections for endangered species at every turn." Greenwald said that the rollback is part of a series of "sweetheart deals," in which the administration settles an environmental lawsuit out of court and, "at the industry's wishes, reduces the critical habitat." According to the Center, the move conforms to a broad trend that includes at least 25 earlier Bush administration decisions on habitat protections for endangered species. In those cases, the protected areas were reduced an average of 36 percent.[2][dated info]

On 16 December 2008, the Center announced intent to sue the United States government for introducing "regulations... that would eviscerate our nation’s most successful wildlife law by exempting thousands of federal activities, including those that generate greenhouse gases, from review under the Endangered Species Act." The lawsuit, which is critical of U.S. Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and President George W. Bush, was filed in the Northern District of California by the Center, Greenpeace and Defenders of Wildlife. According to the Center, "The lawsuit argues that the regulations violate the Endangered Species Act and did not go through the required public review process. The regulations, first proposed on August 11th, were rushed by the Bush administration through an abbreviated process in which more than 300,000 comments from the public were reviewed in 2-3 weeks, and environmental impacts were analyzed in a short and cursory environmental assessment, rather than a fuller environmental impact statement."[3][non-primary source needed]

Rubber Dodo award for anti-environmental record[edit]

Each year since 2007, the Center for Biological Diversity has given an award "to those who have done the most to destroy wild places, species and biological diversity".[4]

name position

2007 Dirk Kempthorne US Interior Secretary

2008 Sarah Palin Alaska Governor

2009 Michael Winer land speculator

2010 Tony Hayward former BP CEO

2011 U.S. Chamber of Commerce

2012 James Inhofe

2013 Koch brothers

2014 U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services[5]

2015 Monsanto

See also[edit]

Environmental journalism

List of environment topics

Wildlife conservation

Wildlife management

Notes[edit]

^ Jump up to:a b c Our Story Center for Biological Diversity - May 10, 2008]

Jump up^ Bush administration wants cut in protection for spotted owl: Proposal would trim preserved habitat

Jump up^ Bush Administration Regulations Gutting Protections for Nation's Endangered Species Published Today - Conservation Groups' Challenge to 11th Hour Reductions in Protections for Nation’s Wildlife Moves ForwarD

Jump up^ staff (6 November 2015). "Monsanto wins the Rubber Dodo award for anti-environmental record". The Wisconsin Gazette (WiG Publishing). Retrieved 18 November 2015.

Jump up^ "Pesticide Peddler Monsanto Wins 2015 Rubber Dodo Award" (Press release). Center for Biological Diversity. 5 November 2015. Retrieved 18 November 2015.

External links[edit]

Center for Biological Diversity website

Categories: BiodiversityConservation in the United StatesEnvironmental organizations based in ArizonaEnvironmental organizations based in the United StatesOrganizations established in 1989Population concern organizations

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https://www.vitter.senate.gov/newsroom/press/vitter-warns-louisiana-of-epas-secret-sue-and-settle-deals-could-impact-state

Vitter Warns Louisiana of EPA’s Secret “Sue and Settle” Deals, Could Impact State

Says EPA and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are colluding with environmental groups

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) is warning of more secret “sue and settle” deals with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and environmental groups. In a letter today, Vitter encourages Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell to join the 13 states’ AGs who recently filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with EPA asking for any and all correspondence between EPA and a list of 80 environmental, labor union and public interest organizations that had been party to litigation since the start of the Obama Administration.

“The collusion between federal bureaucrats and far-left environmental organizations entering legal agreements under a shroud of secrecy is the opposite of a transparent government,” Vitter said. “This is a problem across the country, but could quickly become a threat to Louisianans if we see the full weight of the EPA and Fish and Wildlife Service come crashing down on private landowners.”

Vitter is encouraging Caldwell to join the other states’ AGs, and is also encouraging the inclusion of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in their investigation. The Fish and Wildlife Service was not included in the original FOIA request. In his letter, Vitter also highlights a specific recent example where the Fish and Wildlife Service entered an agreement with the Center for Biological Diversity that could impact private property owners across the South and in Louisiana with new rules on habitat for endangered species on private property because private property owners will have few resources to fight any legal challenge of a massive federal agency.

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2/15 Convergence emerges: Yellowstone River pipeline spill (after Gulf BP spill) PLUS Torrence refinery explosion (after Richmond CA), PLUS 200 offshore CA fracking well PLUS bomb trains exploding show a pattern we can't ignore. Uprising radio (audio) with Antonia_Juhasz, author of Black Tide and The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry--and What We Must Do to Stop It , video.

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http://www.alternet.org/fracking/ca-oil-wells-found-contain-carcinogenic-chemicals

Adding to the already lengthy list of reasons to be concerned about the disposal of oil industry wastewater in California, the Center for Biological Diversity says it has found dangerous levels of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals [3] such as benzene and toluene in fracking flowback.

Flowback is a fluid that floats up to the surface of fracked wells that contains clays, dissolved metal ions and total dissolved solids (such as salt) in addition to chemical additives used in the fracking process.

As such, flowback is a component of oil industry wastewater, and one of the chief reasons why the wastewater must be disposed of in a very cautious manner.

In California, where the toxic and cancer-causing chemicals were found to be present in flowback by the CBD, oil industry wastewater is not, unfortunately, disposed of in a cautious manner.

The most common wastewater disposal method is to inject it underground. It was recently revealed that California regulators have allowed hundreds of injection wells to pump wastewater into aquifers [4] protected under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. Regulators also permitted thousands more wells to inject fluids from “enhanced oil recovery” [5] techniques like acidization and cyclic steam injection into protected aquifers.

Wastewater is also sometimes stored in pits, but again, California regulators have failed to enforce proper safeguards. Clean Water Action released a report last year detailing the threat to California's air and water from the open, unlined pits [6] used to store much of the oil industry's toxic wastewater. According to the report [7], at least 432 of these pits are currently in use in California, most of them operating with an expired permit or no permit at all.

“Cancer-causing chemicals are surfacing in fracking flowback fluid just as we learn that the California oil industry is disposing of wastewater in hundreds of illegal disposal wells and open pits,” said Hollin Kretzmann, the CBD lawyer who conducted the analysis. “Gov. Brown needs to shut down all the illegal wells immediately and ban fracking to fight this devastating threat to California’s water supply.”

It wasn’t just the chemicals Kretzmann found in fracking flowback that are a cause for concern, either. Laxe enforcement of reporting rules make it hard to determine the true extent of the problem, though the CBD still found enough to raise serious questions about the threats flowback fluid poses to public health:

• High chromium-6 levels: Chromium-6 was found in fracking flowback at levels up to 2,700 times the recommended level set by the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

• Missing reports: At least 100 fracking flowback tests are missing from the reporting website managed by California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources, in violation of state law.

• Missing benzene data: Only 329 of the 479 fracking fluid chemical tests on the state oil agency’s website measured for benzene.

*bull; Benzene common: Of those 329 chemical tests that measured for benzene, 323 detected benzene while only six did not.

• Dangerous toluene levels: Toluene, a toxin that can affect the central nervous system and harm developing fetuses, was found to exceed federal-mandated limits for drinking water 118 times.

In some cases, benzene levels in fracking flowback were over 1,500 times the level the federal government says is safe for drinking water. Both chromium-6 and benzene are known carcinogens.

California is the country’s third-largest oil producing state, with some 20% of its oil production coming from fracked wells, according to a recent study [8] that also found that half of all new wells drilled in the past decade use fracking.

Mike Gaworecki is an activist, writer, and musician who lives in San Francisco. He is the online campaigner for RAN's Forests program. Find Mike on Twitter:@MikeG2001 [9]

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Associated Press November 14, 2006

Environmentalists sue Bush administration over global warming report

by TERENCE CHEA, Associated Press Writer

Environmentalists sued the Bush administration for failing to produce a report on global warming's impact on the United States' environment, economy and public health.

Tuesday's lawsuit seeks to compel the U.S. Climate Change Science Program to issue the national assessment, which should contain the most recent scientific data on global warming and projections for its future impacts. The plaintiffs claim the government must complete such a report every four years under the Global Change Research Act of 1990.

"Global warming is one of the most serious threats facing humanity today," according to the complaint. Without the report, decision makers and the public "are without one of the most important tools to grapple with this complex, potentially overwhelming and yet all important issue."

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, which was named in the lawsuit, had not received the complaint Tuesday and could not comment on it, said spokesman Ben Fallon.

But Fallon defended the administration's record on combating global warming, pointing to increased funding for alternative energy research and partnerships with other countries.

"We feel very positive about our record on climate change," Fallon said. "The president has been focused on results-driven research and looking for practical ways to address climate change in ways that aren't damaging to the economy."

Officials at the Climate Change Science Program, also named in the complaint, did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in San Francisco by the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

The assessment, which plaintiffs allege was due in November 2004, is the "first step in crafting solutions to the devastating consequences of climate change if we don't act now," said Julie Teel, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

Sen. John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat and former presidential candidate, who has also been calling on the administration to issue the assessment, expressed support for the lawsuit.

"It's the right time to push Washington to grapple with this issue," Kerry said in a statement. "For too many years, action on global climate change has been stopped dead in its tracks by government foot-dragging, hiding information and smothering science."

Environmentalists have accused the administration of trying to suppress dissemination of the previous assessment, issued in 2000, which predicted a dramatic rise in catastrophic storms, floods, droughts and heat-related deaths. US Environmental Protection Agency next month will unveil plans to start weakening the economic justification for a rule limiting toxic mercury pollution from coal plants.

The EPA isn’t rescinding the standard as of yet but has finished deciding to reconsider the underlying analysis for the 2011 rule, according to the government’s newly published agenda.

Trump races against clock to roll back major Obama-era environment rules

Read more

Donald Trump’s administration is revoking major environmental protections enacted by the Barack Obama administration, arguing Obama rules overestimated health benefits and undercounted costs.

Conservatives say Obama’s EPA shouldn’t have counted health improvements from the mercury rule that would have come from eliminating other kinds of pollution from coal plants, including soot and nitrogen oxide linked to respiratory illnesses and early deaths.

Power companies have already spent the money to comply with the mercury standard, but the EPA wants to rework the cost-benefit analysis behind the regulation anyway. Air law experts say the move could set the agency up to roll back other pollution protections that depend on the mercury rule math. It could also throw settled other regulations into question, setting off a frenzy of lawsuits against the government and businesses, they say.

Obama’s EPA estimated the rule would result in $37bn to $90bn in annual health benefits but that only a small portion of that would be from reducing mercury levels. The agency expected that installing mercury controls would cost industry $9.6bn per year, so the benefits would outweigh the costs. Excluding those secondary benefits would imply the rule cost more than it was worth.

The supreme court in 2015 ruled the EPA broke the law in deciding to regulate mercury without first considering the costs. The EPA in 2016 responded to that with a new analysis. The agency now wants to reassess.

The EPA is still working on its required follow-up review of the risks from mercury and the technologies available to limit it and will issue a draft along with the proposal to re-evaluate the cost-benefit analysis in November.